Dr Samir Brahmachari: India’s regulatory infrastructure needs revamp

We are starting innovation complexes to catalyze ideas. Eight innovation hubs will be located in Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Bangalore. Delhi will focus on affordable healthcare, Kolkata on biomedical instrumentation, areas of surgical equipment and glass fibre technology. The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector being our next focus, the hubs will bring together incubators, entrepreneurs and businesses. Also we are keen on genomic diagnostics. About $210 million has been invested in a project on ayur-genomics. We have also decided to start an institute of synthetic and system biology soon. Apart from that we will have a biostatistics and data quantitfication institute in which 1/4th of the efforts will be on bioscience and healthcare.

In the area of education, we now have CSIR Academy, which has been made functional since April 2012. It will offer 500 courses including life sciences to students across India. The best part would be that for doing an M.Sc in genomics you will no longer require a degree in same subject. A mathematics graduate is free to do masters in biotechnology. That is the USP of the whole programme.

What is the vision for CSIR on its 100th anniversary?Six years back I had a strong doubt whether we would be able to stand relevant by 2012. But now I say this with sense of pride that CSIR has continued to achieve significant results through the research efforts. Over a period of time, the changes have been surgical and not just theoretical.

The innovation spirit is getting very high and the young people in the organization are feeling empowered. There is no place for autocratic leadership in CSIR and as a forward looking organization; it will continue to lead India towards being self reliant in various areas. I think we will not only live 100 years but enjoy them thoroughly.